WaiWai

About

In January 2018 Rodrigo Waiwai, from the
indigenous village Mapuera, in the northern part of the Brazilian Amazon,
visited London to research the collections of Waiwai objects at the British
Museum, and gave a talk on the history of the Waiwai taking as a departure point
the first contact with the missionaries that settled in the area in the late
1940s. Rodrigo discussed the impact of the arrival of the missionaries to their
ways of life, from the translation of the New Testament to Waiwai to drastic
social-organisational changes that led them to abandon small villages near the
headwaters of rivers to settle in bigger and more densely populated
‘mission-villages’, as well as the gradual process of de-signification of
shamanistic knowledge and discontinuation of several rituals and parties.

Rodrigo also talked about the process of demarcation of the land
Trobetas-Mapuera, where he lives and which was fully demarcated in 2008.
Together with the neighbouring lands, called Waiwai and Waimiri-Atroari, as
well as other natural reserves, they form the biggest stretch of land to be
permanently protected in Brazil. The question of ownership of land is itself a
western construct and the anthropological proposal was to incorporate elements
of indigenous thinking into the process and to involve indigenous peoples in
the demarcation. Several indigenous peoples living in this territory are
isolated, nomadic and still uncontacted, therefore the importance of having
long stretches of land in which they can continue to roam and live their lives
undisrupted.

Rodrigo Waiwai was in conversation with Fiona Watson, Research Director at
Survival International, a NGO focused on protecting the rights of indigenous
peoples, with a presentation on the history of land demarcation in Brazil and
current challenges; and John Burton, Founder Director of the organisation World
Land Trust.

who worked with Rodrigo, other
indigenous leaders and anthropologist Ruben Caixeta de Queiroz, from the
Federal University of Minas Gerais, in the demarcation of the indigenous land
Trombetas-Mapuera. Cinthya is also a PhD candidate at King’s College London,
with a thesis on the representation of Amazonian indigenous peoples in art and
anthropological exhibitions.